Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Politifact rules Obama claim False that US steel industry is 'producing as much as ever'. Steel production is down by more than a third from 1973 peak, employment is one fifth 1950s level-Politifact, 7/5/16

Frank Giarratani, an economist at the University of Pittsburgh who
specializes in the steel industry, provided us with numbers calculated
by the U.S. Geological Survey for raw steel production. The data goes
back to 1900.

"We do produce a lot of steel, but current production is far below the post-WWII peak," Giarratani said.

Raw steel production is also down a bit since 2008, when the figure
was 92 million metric tons. That was the last year before Obama took
office and, perhaps more important, the last year before the Great
Recession really hit. Production plunged in 2009, before eventually
rebounding. Other current economic trends have also had an impact. For instance,
the ongoing decline in oil and gas drilling due to low prices is driving
companies to cut back on tubing orders, contributing to a slowdown in
steel production, said Jeff Manuel, an associate professor of historical
studies at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville."I live near U.S. Steel’s Granite City Works in Granite City, Ill.,"
Manuel said. "This mill is currently shut down due, as I understand it,
largely to slack demand from oil and gas companies in the Gulf Coast
region."Steel industry employmentTracking employment is a little trickier than tracking production,
but several experts said that the one-tenth figure Obama cited is off
base.Data from the American Iron and Steel Institute pegged
the all-time employment high at 650,000 employees in 1953. More recent
data from the institute, for 2015, shows that the steel industry directly employs about 142,000 peoplein the United States. That’s closer to one in five jobs left, not the one in 10 Obama cited."So one-tenth is an exaggeration," said Benjamin H. Liebman, an
economist at Saint Joseph's University who specializes in international
trade.The automation trend Obama mentioned did contribute to the
downsizing. "The major reason that steel employment has fallen
drastically over the last 40 years is improved technology," Liebman
said.According to the American Iron and Steel Institute,
"labor productivity has seen a fivefold increase since the early 1980s,
going from an average of 10.1 man-hours per finished ton to an average
of 1.9 man-hours per finished ton of steel in 2014."American steel production has increasingly shifted away from the
extraction of ore for raw material and towards the recycling of scrap
metal, which typically requires fewer workers. "Now, more than 50
percent of all steel produced in the United States is from a process
that recycles scrap metal," Giarratani said.The White House acknowledged that Obama’s remark was incorrect, and
instead told PolitiFact that "the U.S. is producing considerably more
steel than when the president took office." However, the statistics the
White House used to back up that assertion were based on 2009 data,
which captured the post-recession low point."...............................Comment: How much steel does the US import today? US population is constantly increasing, buildings are built, bridges are built, etc. Where has the steel come from to provide for added US population that politicians insist must move here?